Does my MacBook Pro kill batteries?

[tom139]

Hello All.

I have a mid-2010 MBP 13" with the 10 hour battery (haha if only). The battery has been replaced once already because it wouldn't deliver any charge and the reading fluctuated by hours at a time on a properly calibrated battery. The replacement battery was fine until recently when on 12 cycles it has already fallen to 94% health (my previous unibody MacBook had a health of 97% on 200 cycles +). Is this right?

I've had a look in system profiler and it says full charge capacity is 5465mAh - is this lower than what it should be. Does anybody know what the battery should store as new?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Many thanks.

Kind Regards,

Tom

 

[iPhysicist]

After 133 Load Cycles my Battery has 5220 mAH Capacity. At day 1 it had 5450mAH. I can only guess but maybe you got an old 7h Battery

 

[GGJstudios]

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

 

[tom139]

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions: Apple Notebook Battery FAQ

Unfortunately this does not give me the capacities of what my ten hour battery should hold. Does anybody have any idea of this as I guess it could be feasible I have the old battery - are they the same size?

Thanks,

tom139

 

[sjinsjca]

Have you tried recalibrating the battery? After 12 cycles it would seem to be about the right time to do so. This might impact the displayed capacity, so I'd recommend doing that before drawing conclusions about this particular battery's health.

IIRC it's easy enough to do the job: just use the machine until you get the low-battery warning, then keep using it 'til it shuts itself off. Leave it be for several hours. Then, plug it in and let it charge (you can use it while doing so).

Try it; the results might satisfy you. Batteries are amazingly high-tech items nowadays. Avoid assuming that because you had one bad battery, this one might be problematic too. For now, let's hope that's not the case. Calibrate and see.

As to the hours you can get from the battery, like most specs of the sort this will depend on your usage. Some applications and plug ins (cough Flash cough) run up your processor and will drain the battery more than others. Then there are things like Bluetooth and WiFi that draw power even if you're not using 'em. So, for a smidgen more battery life, turn off Bluetooth, reduce your display backlight brightness, avoid Flash-based websites, etc. Plenty of folks exceed 10 hours; you probably can too. But calibrate the battery first.

Good luck!